Plans for Carowinds’ 300 Foot Tall Giga Roller Coaster Surface

Earlier this week, a Charlotte Business Journal article revealed details of a closed session between Carowinds and the local government. The Charlotte, NC area theme park is seeking about $922,000 in incentives for its planned expansion. We knew the expansion included a three year $53 million dollar investment by parent company Cedar Fair. We learned two weeks ago that 2014’s plans include two new water slides and restaurant upgrades.

What we didn’t know was that $30 milllion of it was going to a new roller coaster. That was revealed earlier this week in this article. For context, the park’s popular 232-foot tall hyper coaster Intimidator costs $23 million. Now another articles (New Carowinds Ride to be 70 feet taller than Intimidator) reveals more details about the new ride.

Cedar Fair Entertainment, the parent company of Carowinds, plans to build a 300-foot-tall roller coaster – 70 feet taller than the park’s biggest attraction, the Intimidator – according to a closed-session transcript the Charlotte City Council released Wednesday.

Will Carowinds Get a Giga Coaster?

Again, I’m reminded of a remark of a Carowinds rep years ago that Cedar Fair wanted to invest in two growth markets: Toronto (Canada’s Wonderland) and Charlotte (Carowinds). They may be working out of the same playbook that they used for Canada’s Wonderland. That park received Behemoth (a hyper coaster similar in size to Intimidator) in 2008 and then Leviathan (a 300 foot tall giga coaster) in 2012.
In terms of coaster geekdom, a 300-foot tall roller coaster has to be near (if not at) the top of the wish list. There are only a handful of 300-foot tall roller coasters in the World. And you can literally count the number of roller coasters taller (in the 400-foot range) on two fingers. So this news is a big deal in the coaster community.

We don’t know exactly what type of roller coaster this will be, but assuming that Carowinds is following the Behemoth-Leviathan formula, I hope that the park does a good job differentiating the ride enough from Intimidator. Building a “Leviathan” would mean a taller, faster, Intimidator with fewer airtime hills (those textbook hump-shaped hills). Would that draw out the locals enough? One local council member thinks so:

“The height is what attracts people to coasters and that becomes more of the signature,” said council member Warren Cooksey. “Right now, the signature modern roller coaster at Carowinds is not on people’s radar screens as being a big deal because it’s not about 300 feet.”

The article goes on to state: “The new roller coaster alone is expected to draw an additional 385,000 visitors to the park annually.” I wonder if that’s based on what Canada’s Wonderland saw with Leviathan.

To be honest, I think I’d rather see a 300-foot tall launch roller coaster of some other type. Carowinds has many different types of roller coasters and a launch coaster is something they’re missing. There’s not a good blueprint or existing ride that fits the bill really. A shorter version of Cedar Point’s Top Thrill Dragster would suit in terms of changing the skyline and providing that exciting launch, but Top Thrill Dragster has been hampered by downtime issues in the past. Hopefully, B&M is getting into the launch game.

I’d be happy with a Leviathan-type ride, but I think a launch coaster would be a better fit and possibly draw more attention than another (albeit massive) lift hill. It looks like I just need to find my way into one of these closed sessions and all be known.

Personally, if Carowinds gets a giga coaster, I would want it to be manufactured by Intamin. I don’t like B&M coasters as much. They just don’t do it for me. I live about 20 minutes away from Carowinds and I would like to see an Intamin launch coaster that is 300 feet tall and is the longest roller coaster in the world. I have been on both Kingda Ka and Top Thrill Dragster and I enjoyed the two, but I thought they were lacking in ride time.

Intimidator 232 is a nice ride, but of the six B&M speed coasters in the US it’s my least favorite. It would be a great ride to marathon since it’s relatively mellow for a ride of its size, but I didn’t find it that impressive. Either Goliath in Georgia or Diamondback is my favorite B&M speed coaster – Diamondback starts off stronger but Goliath has better pacing (and DB is weak at the end). I haven’t been on the B&M’s in Canada or Europe. I have ridden Millennium Force and I-305, which are superior to the B&M speed coasters except for their trains – B&M speed coasters have the best restraints. I found Afterburn more intense than I-232. None of the rest of the coasters there were that interesting to me, I did try a few a few times to see how they rode in different parts of the train (Vortex in particular). Most of the rest were one and done. Their Vekoma flyer is my least favorite of the three. Ouch ouch ouch. My vote for Carowinds new giga would be a 300 foot version of El Toro … although I don’t expect to see that. One addition I would like to see Carowinds add, one that is more reasonable to hope for, would be more awnings over the ride queues. A shade over the stairs in the queue for I-232 would not cost much.

PS – the awnings over the queues could be solar photovoltaic panels to power the rides, that would a tiny fraction of the ride cost and would reduce the park’s dependence on the nearby nuclear power station.

There are so many launch coasters in the South. Universal has one, Dollywood is getting one, KD has 3 (even though that park counts as a Mid-Atlantic Park), Six Flags America has 1, BGW has one, BGT has one, etc. I think a giga coaster is a better fit for the park. There aren’t any hyper coasters in the Southeast taller than Intimidator, so why not? I don’t like the idea of an Intamin version because they break down so much. I-305 was closed for a good portion of the year, and Top Thrill Dragster is a maintainence nightmare. B&M’s are better in terms of efficiency. I’ve never been to the park once where Intimidator was closed due to maintainence. But I hope Carowinds does a MUCH better job on the theme than they did when Intimidator was released. Sure, the model of the stock car was cool, but on crowded days, I get bored out of my mind. Seems like when Cedar Fair bought the theme park, they took the theme out of it. There’s no theme at Carowinds or any Cedar Fair Park for that matter. The only one with good theming is Knott’s Berry Farm. Six Flags does a better job with the theme and they over-use it at there parks. Can Carowinds atleast put on some Peanuts Cartoons on? That would be enough.

They should go for a launched giga that will combine the Storm Runner with an I-305 or Millennium Force type layout if their concerned with height. I’m anti B&M on this one. It’ll be too similar to “I-232″. Maverick would be a perfect fit and a park favorite.

I too would prefer Intamin over B&M. B&M hypers and gigas are nice. Intamin hypers and gigas are great with insane amounts of airtime. The B&M airtime is simply too gentle for my taste. Although I have to say that the Intimidator at Carrowinds is one of the better ones in that regard, if I remember correctly.

Also, for a name, I’d like to see this coaster named be called “Jormungandr” (pronounced Yo-Mung-Gand-err) because this name works on two levels: 1. If it is a B&M Giga it follows the Leviathan theme. If you don’t know already, the Jormungandr is a Giant Serpent like monster from norse mythology. It is so large that it can not fit on the earth and it has to eat itself to keep from falling off. 2. The name also works out if the coaster goes out of the park and back. The teaser video could have something like “so large that it can’t fit in the park”. I hope this name is considered.

Also, I think it would be a good idea if Carowinds put some fiberglass mountain on the Goldrusher and make it like Big Thunder Mountain at WDW. Then the park would have its own Wonder Mountain and maybe put a 3D Dark Ride in there.

I personally think that if Carowinds builds something else like Intimidator, then It will just be another Intimidator, except taller. While reading this article, I do think that Carowinds should do a roller coaster on the lines of Top Thrill Dragster. I understand how height plays a major role, but I think speed counts too. If we can’t do something like Top Thrill Dragster, then I hope the roller coaster could at least be something interesting and Maybe even add some Loops, upside downs and maybe even a tunnel! Other articles said that this new addition (along with other additions to the park during the 2014 season and even more seasons up aheAd) will draw crowd attendence up, which would make Carowinds be one of the great amusement parks, up there with parks such as Cedar Point. I think that’s great, because if you compare Carowinds to other parks, we aren’t as big and don’t have enough roller coasters. But Carowinds is VERY Diverse, offering a lot of Diversity!!!

I agree with MB on the speed thing. It would be nice to have a large version of Xcelerator but faster. There aren’t alot of rollercoasters in the world that have broken the 100 MPH barrier, and I think I can only count 6 (Dodonpa, Top Thrill Dragster, Kingda Ka, Formula Rossa, Superman Escape from Krypton, and Tower of Terror). There could be more, but the point I’m trying to prove is that it would be cool to see another coaster break that speed limit once again. I’m actually okay with intamin, but I think they should try to work with B&M on the maintainence issues because Xcelerator, Intimidator 305, Top Thrill Dragster and Millenium force have all had their issues. I don’t think Carowinds is the right place for a winged coaster. Besides the park has alot of loops already and another inverting coaster is the LAST thing we need.

I think that Cedar Fair should buy from Intamin only if Intamin agrees to make a reliable, low maintenance coaster. Even though I don’t like B&M coasters, it would be cool to see the first launched B&M coaster pop up at the park

if you didnt know Xtreme Flyer will be moving in between nighthawk and windseeker in whats left of the pond, hopefully they dont fill it in, they probably will tho. Constructions on the new slides will start around Feb 2014, Afterburn will be repainted the same color scheme (blue columns and silver track) even tho it was said to sport the same color scheme as Patriot (blue columns red track with a white stripe) and Ricochet is being repainted with dark blue columns teal arms and a lime green track. Then there’s the new dining complex that is to be in front of Intimidator. Gr8 Skate is supposedly moving as well. Now as far as this new coaster is concerned, I’m hoping for a launch as well if not then Intamin should build it. Carowinds is full of B&M coasters we need something different. Honestly I’m all for coasters any day but we can go without a coaster Carowinds need more big boy flat thrills like MaXair at cedar point or monster at Canada Wonderland there’s only 2, screamweaver and southern star.